Freezer Burned: Tales of Interior Alaska

Freezer Burned is an ongoing series for the San Juan Update, written by Steve Ulvi. Read the previous story in this series.

The Alapah Cabin at Last

After eight drudgerous days of working his way up the Kuuk River, Sonny found the last two nights of siwash camping about as pleasant as could be hoped for. Stealing away from the Ramparts Cabin and the snoring Texans at o’dark thirty he found a tenuous route just skirting the icy edge of tumbling water lit by the sweeping cone of his headlamp at the foot of Old Woman Rock. Above the latitude of the Arctic Circle, entering the vaunted Brooks Range, just miles up to tree line, it was a rare December meteorological gift; a few days of respite from frigid polar air. Daily temperatures were well above zero, light airs in a wind funnel canyon and large swirling snowflakes that were reminiscent of a gigantic child’s snow globe. Exact whereabouts unknown; Sonny had no sense of urgency as he was absorbed in the natural flow of steady progress and the certainty that his destination was near.

Red fox had been stitching back and forth, always snooping and scratching down here and there while yard-wide caribou trails had been softly erased. Sonny came across the fresh tracks of Dall sheep at some mineral licks at small creek clefts where there lingered just a faint whiff of sulphur and salts. He deftly moved even further away from the cliff face, looking up and listening closely as a few rocks thudded on the ice ahead of him. The source of instability above was obscured by gauzy clouds but he imagined climbing white sheep.

He had resorted to snowshoeing ahead without the pulke; then tramping back to drag it more easily on the twice packed trail. Three miles of distance for one mile of progress, until the canyon walls receded behind him. After the constriction and deeper snow of the canyon, the waters of the Kuuk braided among small wooded islands and invited waters coursing from side valleys nearly the size of the narrowing Kuuk. Scenic valleys that wend away into the mists with vaporous tendrils dancing on ridges rising up into the hidden jumble of slate grey peaks. Dippers; plump dark grey birds, cutely amphibious, also called ouzel, flitted and bobbed around groundwater upwellings along the river bank. River otter slides!

He sensed, then saw, a dark brown bundle of energy ahead at a logjam, the blonde diamond pattern on its back; unique to a wolverine. One of the most fascinating and worrisome creatures for bush dwellers and fur trappers in truly wild country; also called carcagou, skunk bear and the glutton. A rare wildlife sighting even in northern Alaska. A beast of just 20-40 pounds that has the ferocity to take over a kill from a grizzly or a few wolves. Sonny watched, smiling in the raw joy of the minute, wondering if Nate had traps set down this way yet. He felt good realizing that he was now in Nate’s extensive trapping area. The Alapah was not far now, but darkness was falling.

This winter journey – a walkabout, a vision quest, call it what you like – was about breaking free from his lifetime in a remote Athapaskan village on the Yukon River. A place of third-world living conditions, most activities firmly rooted in Old Alaska and deep native cultural traditions; now exposed to cloying modernity, glaring statewide social inequity and complicated gender roles. A living culture engenders participation and care for less able neighbors, who are more often than not, related in some way. All of this played out for centuries with little awareness of other ways of human existence beyond the horizon.

Native men had always trapped winter fur, passing down family trapping areas, but in the 1980s European anti-fur demonstrations and boycotts as well as ranched fur depressed urban demand. Many families had switched from trusty sled dogs to snowmachines that were becoming more reliable; but fuel delivered by summer barge was very expensive. The faraway pressure and the sheer work of it all out in the frozen landscape had diminished its central importance and an important male economic role in the village. Summer firefighting was about the only other way to earn money. But his people – at least the ones who did not flee to urban Alaska – were still immersed in and surrounded by an immense riverine landscape; their aboriginal homeland for millennia.

Doubt lurked just beneath the ebullience Sonny felt as he severed the umbilical cord of his immediate family support and watched his Uncle Jimmy’s snowmachine disappear; leaving him alone on the lower Kuuk River. From that moment on he had been tested in ways unanticipated. He passed most trials “with flying colors” as his dad would say; gaining physical strength and mental confidence forged by the cold, honed in self-reliance.

He had adjusted to the emotional dimensions of visiting the Hendersen family, managed to kill the dangerous winter bear, endured personal conflicts with abusive gold miners; all had conspired to test his composure and mettle. Daily thoughts of his departed mother, Sarah, helped Sonny remember that she often said that we are surrounded by life lessons that require good choices. She also believed fervently that God was watching over each and every person. Sonny now had grave doubts about that given her terrible death.

Meanwhile up at Alapah Creek, Nate Cutler was struggling with being alone as “the hump” of winter solstice light deprivation approached. December was a narrowing tunnel of darkness and increasing cold. Back in the last days of September Nate had hoisted his heavy backpack at the Ramparts and waved thanks to Lars Hendersen, who was heavily bundled and arcing away from the shore in his open riverboat. The brilliant color mosaic of the brief and intense arctic autumn had faded like an old photo of bright memories, but Nate reveled in living in the moment; happy to be free from wage-earning, struggling to understand and explain the convoluted policies of the new park to skeptical locals, and the always frenetic activities in the endless light of summer.

Barren branches rattled in a cold breeze rushing from the mountain slopes; the sky was impossibly blue. He hiked by a few rotting salmon carcasses along the shoreline among parallel windrows of leaves artistically arranged by falling water levels. Raucous ravens and roaming fox would soon finish scavenging such easy pickings; seemingly collaborating. He thrilled to the sonorous howling of a large wolfpack during the long nights. ‘Maybe I can trap more than a dozen this year’, he thought.

Once again, as he picked his way along the shoreline, thumbs under his pack’s shoulder straps to ease the strain, his thoughts wandered to efforts during the summer months to meet and attract an outdoorsy woman to join him at the very remote Alapah Cabin. He had failed again. Such a proposition was a tough ask; like describing the euphoria of floating like a bird after parachuting out of an airplane knowing that it would necessarily begin with letting go; standing at the open door holding the wing strut buffeted in the slipstream, looking down on a distant landing. It was a huge commitment; no turning back and had to be based upon shared trust not just animal magnetism.

Nate had greatly enjoyed the first few weeks at Alapah; mindless but deeply satisfying physical labor to prepare for the descending curtain of winter that would quickly lock up the Kuuk country. It was an indescribable elation to know this wild country as his trapping area, his personal wilderness refuge from the madding world; but being alone for weeks on end eroded his full enjoyment of day-to-day living. Nate attributed his debilitating sense of aloneness as one manifestation of the stress and anxiety of his step-father’s abuse and threats toward his mother, his hidden alcoholism during Nate’s formative years on the upper Yukon River, a few miles downriver from Mission City. Nate had worried himself to sleep countless nights hearing the muffled arguing. He had to listen closely as he felt protective as the oldest child, the son, with two younger sisters and was worried sick about his loving mother’s well-being.

The AM radio, wired to a car battery, was a lifeline to human voices and messages to remote outposts on Trapline Chatter from North Pole Alaska. Clear reception for more than a few minutes was often iffy except in a very cold, layered atmosphere where he heard powerful broadcasts “on the skip” from as far as San Francisco and Whitehorse, Canada. It was spell binding reportage without the Christian filtering of King Jesus North Pole, Alaska at 50,000 watts of regional proselytizing power.

His calendar notations of daily weather and notable events indicated that it was now the 13th of December. A couple of hours earlier, as darkness began to obscure the gently falling snow, Nate had dropped down to the Kuuk after checking traps along a low, forested ridge rising and arcing a mile behind the cabin. He was energized and intensely curious having observed a distant person – no way to discern who – snowshoeing toward his cabin on the Kuuk. His mind raced. When he reached the cabin he stoked the stove but also started cleaning things up a bit. It couldn’t be Susan, his latest love interest, the leggy and whip-smart rafting guide, could it? Could it? His entire being warmed at the thought, his reptilian brainstem and latent hormonal system was sparked by imagining the most unlikely of scenarios.

Nate retrieved a frozen caribou tenderloin, mixed and started cooking a stove top pan bread to be smothered in left-over bear gravy. His homebrew in a lidded plastic bucket behind the stove was still a touch green, about half gone, certainly drinkable. The second mug always went down even better than the first; a nightly ritual he looked forward to. But a toothache that had been sharpening in sensitivity was worsening. He couldn’t quaff un-warmed beer or water. Nate had antibiotics and pain killers in his small medical kit but so far had only used clove oil on cotton swabs clamped between his teeth along with daily penicillin. His face was puffy and he was concerned. Shaking his head, murmuring “ain’t life a bitch”, he ducked through the cabin door to walk his hardpacked trail to the riverbank where he stood and waved a pitch-wood torch, anxious to cut the suspense about just who was coming in.

A couple of days passed, the two young men caught up on events after short days spent out hunting meat for the larder. The peripatetic bands of caribou were here today, gone tomorrow, hence the Rangifer genus name. Just a mile down river they shot four walking animals in a band of twenty; Nate picked out two fat cows but Sonny shot a big antlerless bull now past the rut and the bullet took down a young cow walking behind the bull. Nate frowned and said that “the ‘stink bull’ is dogfood, but we don’t even have a dog!” To make the best use of the carcass on a willow bar, Nate opened the gut and set 20 wire snares in natural trails to it for wolves and fox. Sonny had a lot to learn, but this was a good mistake.

Sonny’s easy-going ways, curiosity, common sense and youthful work ethic had a multiplier effect on his mere presence as a companion. Nate was feeling newly energized, the stultifying thoughts of loneliness evaporated instantly. It wasn’t Susan who ‘shoed up into the yellow flicker of his torch, but probably better that way. They laughed when Nate copped to the silly notion of Susan arriving at the Alapah. They brightened when listening to Trapline Chatter, hearing a surprise message. “Next is a message for Nate at Alapah Creek. Hi Nate. You should be seeing Sonny Johns pretty soon. Come on down for Christmas if you can. We would love to see you both. Good trapping! The Hendersens.” They talked of the Hendersens and Nate relished teasing Sonny about the stunning young adult sisters. “Wait till they see the scar on your cheek and hear the rest of that story!”

Sonny and Nate talked of the unusual sighting of a guy lining a loaded canoe up the Kuuk in July. Lars had seen the guy twice while in the air. He thought that he acted as though he was trying to avoid being seen. Nate offered, “You know when I rowed that second Park Service trip down in late July, the gal at the Tonasket store said that a tall, quiet guy had flown in on the mail plane, bought some odds and ends, an old canoe, and later caught a ride up the Kuuk with the Poker Creek Mine freight boat. I saw large gumboot tracks on several mud bars a few bends upriver by Otter Creek. Someone had stayed in my shack but the cache barrels were unopened and everything looked good.”

“The place is on a old gravel terrace, trees cleared so it aged pretty well. It has an unusual double layer roof. Lars says that an old-timer used to winter up there, a guy called Smokey Sven due to stories that he set spring fires nearby to get free chopper rides back to town in the 1960s. He was in his 70s then. He had prospected the area but worked in the mines mostly until it wore him down.”

Nate refilled his own cup, Sonny declined more, but Nate continued the tale since Sonny had never heard it. “Lars says he must have gone near blind drinking methyl alcohol one winter; ran outta firewood, stumbled down the Kuuk headed the 22 miles to Hendersens. Lars always checks on folks, every month or so, always has. From the air he saw Smokey, or at least a frozen lump with a characteristic red capote nearly frozen in at the end of a zig zag snowshoe trail that ended in overflow ice. Lars says a lot of old-timers hated the thought of dying in the wilds and being scavenged by wolves and such, so he likely gave up the ghost placing himself so as to be encased by protective ice.”

“I bet Lars cussed him for doing it since he had to chop him out,” mused his rapt visitor. “Well, Ada was with him and the two of them could really work. She was an assistant sheep guide at that time. They brought along axes and ice chisels and a come-along. They had broken trail from Ramparts with snowmachines and sleds, camped and tended a big thawing fire all night, turning Sven over every once in a while. They didn’t dare chop more at his ice cocoon but they hardly dozed off, given their fears of scorching him. Lars said that it was all unsettling because Sven’s his eyes were frozen open!”

The next morning, Nate woke early, unable to sleep, as tiny lightning storms blitzed his upper jaw. He impatiently waited for Sonny to stir from his quiet snoring. His throbbing tooth was reaching criticality despite the antibiotics. He knew that they had to pull the exploding bicuspid to avoid serious blood poisoning that could damage his heart, possibly ensure a hellish, slow death.

“Alright Doc Holiday, time to wake up! Let’s get some coffee in you.” He winced, then growled, “Then think about a beer. I’m on my third. I am so damned glad you arrived when you did. We gotta do this now”. Sonny slurped coffee and stared at the stark reality of the scene before him. On the table in front of Nate was a short piece of axe handle big enough to bite down on between back molars – allowing room to work on the tooth – the tools, alcohol swabs, more warmed homebrew, and some paper towels shaped into short cigar wads.

He had also lashed a board upright to the back of his chair so that Sonny could secure his head to minimize the natural tendency to jerk away in pain. Nate knew it would be excruciating; he might even pass out. They had already laughed and riffed on the Hollywood depictions of the ever-stoic cowboy; “Why Marshall, don’t them thar injun arrows sticking through your shoulder hurt sumthin’ turrible?” Glancing at his shoulder, the tall, handsome hombre, who turned women’s bonneted heads when he tipped his hat in town, smirked and replied “Well now, Gus, guess that I’m slipping some! Hand me that bottle of rot gut. Break ‘em off and push ‘em on through, I got work to do!”

They had talked a lot. Sonny realized that he had to try to extract the entire tooth and not break it off leaving some infected roots and raw nerve endings. That would be really bad. Without a radio or any means of communication the backup plan – should things get worse – was for Sonny to pack down an airstrip and line it with spruce boughs then do a forced march back down to the Hendersen’s place so that Lars could fly up, land and haul Nate away to Fairbanks. If Sonny could make it, if Lars was even around, if the weather wasn’t snotty and if Nate was still upright. Sonny figured that twisting on the tooth as he pulled would increase the probability of breaking it, not getting it all. They had talked of the best strategies based upon very limited knowledge.

They clinked metal cups and downed their beer. Then Nate was strapped in, mouth propped open; Sonny attempting gum numbing using ice and then clove oil. Sonny then gently dried off the tooth and adjusted the vice grips on the angry tooth at the swollen gum line, while Nate winced and stressfully hummed some tune, a death grip on the arms of his chair. Sonny firmly held the small pliers and gently banged down with his other fist on his own wrist; then harder, then much harder and the tooth came out with a small spurt of blood and pus; the terrible whiff of rot caused Sonny to pull back wincing.

He rinsed the tooth, then held the vice-grips up in the light of the lamp so they could both see that the root was intact. Sonny sighed, eyes looking heavenward in relief, Nate’s physical stress in his shoulders, neck and face visibly receded. Sonny, now able to add tooth-yanking to his short but expanding resume, loosened the restraints and filled a cup with heavily salted warm water for Nate to rinse and spit, again and again.

“I owe you more than you can know, Sonny. Your timing, if purely coincidental, is mind-boggling. I do not believe in miracles stemming from some kind of divine providence. But phenomenal things occur often, like one house in a neighborhood left intact while scores nearby are utterly destroyed by a twister or fire. Your arrival may have saved my life in a near-miraculous way, but I remain a rational atheist”.

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